THE STRUGGLE FOR IRAQ; Many Lawmakers Go to Iraq, but Few Change Their Minds

By MICHAEL LUO

Published: April 3, 2007

Visits to Iraq have become a required part of the political wardrobe for lawmakers hoping to be taken seriously in the debate over the future of the war.

Over the past two months, as lawmakers have debated the supplemental spending bill for the war and the troop buildup, they have brought up their trips again and again, wielding their experiences as rhetorical weapons to bolster their case.

According to the Pentagon, as of mid-March, 365 members of Congress had visited the country since May 2003, when Mr. Bush declared the end of major combat operations. But it is unclear just how illuminating the trips have been.

The duration and scope of Congressional visits are tightly controlled. Lawmakers from opposing parties often travel together, but draw opposite conclusions from the same trip on the war's progress. And while lawmakers say they are deeply moved by their experiences, they almost always return with their previous convictions firmly reinforced.

''I was there in Iraq,'' Representative Loretta Sanchez, a California Democrat, said several weeks ago while detailing her reasons for opposing Mr. Bush's plan to send 21,500 additional troops to the region.

Rising in support of the president's strategy, Representative Mike Pence, an Indiana Republican, said he spoke as ''one who has been there.'' [He made his fifth trip over the weekend].

A recent survey by the Medill News Service found that about two-thirds of House Republicans had been to Iraq, while fewer than half of Democrats had visited. Representative Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican who is the ranking member on the House Government Reform subcommittee on national security, has visited 15 times, more than any other member.

Among the presidential contenders, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York made her third visit to Iraq this year. Her chief Democratic competitor, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, visited for the first time last year. [Senator John McCain of Arizona, who is vying for the Republican nomination and has largely linked his political fortunes to the president's new strategy, made his fifth trip to Iraq on Sunday with Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, and two Republican congressmen, Rick Renzi of Arizona and Mr. Pence.]

Representative Patrick Murphy, a Pennsylvania Democrat and former Army paratrooper who has visited Iraq both as a soldier and as a member of a Congressional delegation, said lawmakers' trips were invariably ''somewhat scripted.'' He said, ''I demanded that I break bread with guys I served with that would give me the straight story.''

Jack Keane, a retired general and former Army vice chief of staff, said the trips had been ''very limited'' because of security concerns.

Members rarely spend more than a night in Iraq, often flying back to Kuwait or Jordan at the end of the day. The trips are heavy on meetings with American military and embassy officials, with almost no opportunities for unscripted encounters with regular Iraqis.

Mr. Keane said the new commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, was trying to get Congressional delegations out into the field more.

''He wants them to have primary sources,'' he said, ''not just secondary sources.''

Even with the extraordinary security precautions, the trips are clearly dangerous. Representatives Ike Skelton, Democrat of Missouri, and Tim Murphy, Republican of Pennsylvania, were traveling in a minibus when a tanker truck accidentally sideswiped them in 2005, tipping their vehicle over. The two were hospitalized, but not seriously injured.

Many prominent critics of the war have never been to Iraq -- fewer than one-third of the 75 members of the House's Out of Iraq Caucus have visited -- and some insist that they are none the worse for it.

''I don't like to fly,'' said Representative Walter B. Jones, a North Carolina Republican who broke with his party last month to oppose President Bush's troop buildup. ''Where you really need to go is go to Walter Reed. See the legs that are gone. See those who are paralyzed and cannot control their bodily functions.''

But Senator Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican who made her first visit to the region a few weeks ago with three Senate colleagues -- John E. Sununu, Republican of New Hampshire, Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, and Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota -- said she found there was ''no substitute for seeing things firsthand.''

Before her visit, she said, she had been skeptical of the president's new strategy. But she said she came away believing that it had a chance of making a difference. ''I'm willing to give Petraeus what he has asked for,'' she said. ''He said, 'I will know by midsummer whether or not this surge has worked.' ''

Mr. Whitehouse, who made his first visit to Iraq this year, admitted that his 36-hour trip had been tantamount to ''drilling a tiny, tiny, little core sample out of some vast geologic mass and then drawing conclusions from it.''

Nevertheless, he said, he returned from the trip convinced that repeated Democratic efforts to force an American withdrawal were having a desirable effect. ''We are actually arming General Petraeus with arguments to get the Iraqis off their tail ends to do what they need to do,'' he said.

But Mr. Sununu said he returned more convinced than ever about the danger of legislation that imposes conditions on war financing.

''The message was very clear,'' he said, citing his own conversations with troops. ''We need this funding, and we need it immediately.''

The most valuable parts of the trips, however, transcend politics, said Ms. Klobuchar. At the end of their visit, when the senators were waiting to leave, the military transport plane next to theirs was being loaded with six coffins.

While Mr. Sununu and Ms. Murkowski participated in the ceremony honoring the dead service members, a group of National Guardsmen from Minnesota called Ms. Klobuchar to stand with them. They saluted the dead together.